


Mixed Case, Numbers, and Symbols

by dubstepgun



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:04:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dubstepgun/pseuds/dubstepgun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A far-future everyday scene. Hints of AC3 spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixed Case, Numbers, and Symbols

**Author's Note:**

> A late present for a friend <3

Woodsmoke was the smell of home. 

Desmond pulled a shirt on as he wandered into the kitchen toward the sound of keys tapping. It was one of the morning sounds, like the birds outside the window. Around the back of the blond head, Desmond could see text and numbers scroll by, blocky white on black ( _“GUIs are training wheels.”_ ) 

“Checking email?” he said, cracking his neck. 

“Yep, yours,” Clay said without turning around. “Didn't take two minutes to get in. Honestly, 'eagle?'”

Desmond opened the cupboard and got out a mug. “I always forget it if I try to do the random letters and numbers thing.” 

“That's not actually that much better. Multiple words is the real trick. With a program doing a hundred requests per second, a common word gets checked against the dictionary and broken in five minutes, and a bunch of random letters takes a few months to brute-force through, but make it a three word phrase and there's so many possibilities that it'd take two thousand years to crack. Change it, and I swear to god, if I see it written on a post-it note somewhere I'm sending everything you own to a Nigerian prince.” 

“Want some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

_6 months ago_

_“So our old friend isn't giving up.”_

_The display on the meeting room wall showed a calm-looking man in his thirties with upswept eyebrows and a suit that would make you think he was somebody's accountant if you didn't know he was the most brutally ambitious Templar of the past decade._

_“He's trying to get the war started up in full swing again.” Clay's fingers tapped on the table. “He might be able to do it, too. There are plenty who'd like to go back to trying to kill us all straight out, as long as they're not the ones taking the risk.”_

_“Now this is nostalgic,” said Shaun. “It's a good old-fashioned case of needing someone dead.”_

_“I'll do it,” said Desmond._

_“No you won't,” Clay said immediately. “That's what young people are for.”_

_“I wouldn't be much of a Mentor if I sent a kid to do something I could do myself.”_

_“Still not going to call you that,” said Shaun._

_Clay got up and left the room. He heard footsteps behind him. At the corner he turned grabbed Desmond, and shoved him against the wall for a hard kiss._

_“You stay in contact every second. And be_ careful _, dammit.”_

_Desmond's hand rested on his shoulder. “I will.”_

When Desmond straightened up from throwing another log on the fire to chase away the chill, Clay was looking at him strangely. 

“That's what it is,” he said, as if concluding something. “You forget to shave?” 

Desmond's hand went to the rough bristles on his cheek. “I thought I'd try growing it out. But...” 

Clay leaned back with his arm slung over the chair. “But?” 

“It's kind of gray,” Desmond admitted. 

Clay got up, his eyes fixed on Desmond's face. He stepped toward him and moved Desmond's hand away so he could replace it with his and hold him steady. His palm was smooth and warm. For a while he looked at him.

“It looks good on you,” he said. 

_Between hard breaths and rapid footfalls. ”Target's down. I'm two blocks from the rendezvous point.”_

_The edges of the radio dug into Clay's hand. “How many are after you?”_

_“At a guess?” Static. Shouts in the distance. A shot. “Most of them.”_

_“We're coming.” The van jerked as Rebecca stomped on the gas._

_They barely slowly down enough for Clay to grab Desmond and haul him in by a shirtfront that was sticky with drying blood._

_“Calm down, it's not mine,” Desmond kept saying over the screech of tires and Shaun's shout to for the love of god watch where you're going._

_“You look like hell.”_

_He smiled tiredly. “Good to see you too.”_

“It's not fair,” Desmond said as he rested his hands on Clay's waist. His hair was the same dirty blond as it had ever been. “Twenty years and you don't look any different from the day we met.”

“Jesus, has it been that long?” 

Clay's sense of time was never quite right. It was long habit for Desmond to turn off burners that'd been lit what was five minutes ago to him, or to recognize the look of confusion when, after a pause for breath in conversation, he'd be surprised to find himself still there. 

“Yeah. Time flies, huh? When I was growing up here I couldn't stand all the old guys who were always ordering us around. I never thought I'd end up one of them.” 

“The difference is the kids like you.” Rebecca said it was because he was a good listener. Shaun said it was because they recognized a kindred spirit in someone who was mentally twelve. 

It was strange not to hear them yelling and running around, but the trips out to the city had been Desmond's idea in the first place. He didn't want anybody else feeling trapped like he had. Usually he was the one to take them, but after the job he'd done a while back, it was better to lay low for a while. 

“And,” Clay added, the corner of his lips quirking up, “you're pretty hot for an old guy.” 

Desmond leaned his forehead against his. “So are you.” 

And he had to laugh, because after every insane ordeal they'd been through, it was good to be here, home, with the world as close to peace as it got, where Clay got to do all the political stuff he loved and Desmond got to see him be truly, genuinely excited about campaign finance reform, and it was good to be around to be old. It must have been that brush with clanging alarms and gunfire and the man he told to rest, his fight was over, that made him remember so clearly what it felt like to travel down what they had called more like roads and find Animus and Apple and Ankh and a him who was breathing again. Sometimes he would see Clay flexing his fingers and laughing, those first days when everything was strange and new, and though he was just realizing how little he knew about this man who'd pieced his mind back together, the first thing he understood about him was the joy of feeling because you _could_. 

Clay rubbed his face against Desmond's bearded cheek. “Huh. Scratchy.” Kissed him, and tasted like black coffee. “I like it.” 

Desmond's arms wrapped around him and pulled him close. He was solid, powerfully built, slower than Desmond in a full-out sprint but he could still beat him to the top of the ropes in the gym. Desmond's hands slipped down under his jeans to appreciate how his ass filled his hands. Clay let out a soft breath that was warm against his neck.

“So,” Clay murmured, and kissed beneath his ear, “since you don't have anything to do this morning...” 

“Besides you?” 

“Oh god damn it.” Clay's head dropped onto his shoulder. “That's _horrible_.” 

Desmond grinned. “You still love me.” 

Clay flicked his eyes up at him. He had an intense look even when he was smiling. “Yeah, but don't push it.”

He was amazed how quickly his whole body could want him. He slid his hands around to undo Clay's belt and push his pants down. He got onto his knees and rubbed his face against Clay's stomach, felt the muscles tense.

“Shit, that tickles.” 

Desmond breathed in his scent and laughed. He licked playfully around the base of his cock.

“Jesus,” he groaned, “what are you trying to do to me?” 

“That,” Desmond said, wrapping his hand around him and feeling him thicken. 

He loved it when Clay shivered. Loved how his breath caught when he licked along his hipbone, and the gasping noise he made when he took him in his mouth. He knew, too, how good it was to feel. He kicked off his pants and they slid across the floor, belt clattering on the tile. Desmond tapped on the front of his thighs to get him to back up against the counter, and then he could _really_ get started. 

Clay's breath roughened and his fingers tangled in Desmond's hair. It wasn't long until his grip turned into tugs, and, "C'mon and fuck me." 

Desmond made an agreeable noise and pulled back. He got up, and pulled off Clay's shirt while he was at it. Clay pulled him into the bedroom and pushed him down on the bed.

"Little impatient, huh?" 

Clay rolled his eyes and tugged his clothes off. 

Desmond liked it when he was insistent, demanding attention. The way his focus was all on him. How his eyes half-closed and he breathed a hushed sigh as he slid inside, or how his fingers splayed over his shoulderblade and pulled him toward him. 

They lay on their backs on the sweaty, tangled sheets. Clay's arm was draped carelessly over Desmond's chest, like something forgotten to be picked up later. Desmond watched leaves rustle against the window.

"We should trim some of those branches," he said. "Thought one was gonna come crashing through the window, the last storm." 

Clay said, "Yeah." 

Desmond was quiet for a while, feeling the warm ache in his muscles and breathing in and out.

Then: "It's good to be alive, isn't it." 

Clay turned his head to look at him, face half hidden by the pillow. "Yeah." 

Desmond could see what he was going toward, in the way his teeth touched his lip, like when he was working through a problem late at night and about to find the answer. He didn't talk about this much.  
"When I was there inside, I thought I saw everything. I knew you'd have the chance to come back, but there's so many things I didn't know." 

His voice was quiet and full of thoughts worn by time into their history. His hand curled around the slope of Desmond's side, his fingers digging in. 

"That you'd bring me with you, or that we could win." His eyes were very blue. "Or that the coward I died for could be worth it." 

Desmond kissed him. "Happy birthday, Clay."

He smiled, close and secret. "You too."


End file.
